So it will happen - when the Singaporeans formulate a plan, they stick to it and the job gets done.

After my walk I decided to log-on and catch up on my email but everything seemed very slow. I did a speed check and I was getting close to 1Mbps on both uploads and downloads on my hotel LAN. Huh. This didn't stack up - optical fibre to the hotel but only 1Mbps to my room?

Was there something wrong? I checked with the manager and he assured me that 1Mbps was the norm and this was considered to be broadband. I decided to just look surprised and be magnanimous. When you are a guest in a country, it is always best to be polite!

I made enquires and did a few tests on public sites, and it seems 1Mbps is a widespread norm for Singapore. I also tried my 3G dongle but could never get more than about 0.9Mbps. Strangely, a lot of my contacts seemed to accept that this rate is sufficient.

There seemed to be a paradox here. The Singapore government clearly gets it but it might be that some of the public don't - certainly my hotel manager didn't. Contrast this to the UK where the public gets it but the government doesn't.